Lost Boy
by OurLadyoftheBonBons
Summary: Thought it was a bit sad that there wasn't the option for a common Human to become Warden. So this is a quick chapter of my thoughts on a possible Origin.


The nights were the longest time. He didn't mind the dark; he didn't mind the cold that crept insidiously from the almost ghostly Frostbacks to the west. In fact to be truthful he loved the night, even the long winter ones. Perhaps even especially those. He would sit huddled beneath every item of clothing, swathed in every blanket and skin before the bare embers of the night fire and just look at the stars above him. With breath whorling from his nose at each exhalation, he would watch the night pass in the passage of star and constellation. Some he knew, from the seasons and from his father for the passage of time and the care of the animals, others he named silently in his mind. Names given to those that wheeled so far above him, but were so familiar they were close friends. His only friends. His father and he were not so welcome in the village below the foothills, though their meat and wool were sought after at the markets. It was his father who undertook that journey, taking the two or three weeks afterward to recover from the experience, most of the time under the haze of rough brewed beer and half cured smoking weed. He didn't mind so much, he had found peace in the night with the backdrop of the mumbling curled horned sheep, the slight ringing music that he knew was the sound of the stars. Fewer than the fingers on one hand he had ventured with his father, but the noise and ruthless push of humanity even in the small village had poisoned his mind to the press of people, and the system that his father had worked out was enough for him.

He awoke to a fog filled valley, the mist glowing with the rays of the just born sun. Unfolding himself from the mound of fabric he breathed in the day. But it wasn't fresh, not clear like the other mornings. Like all the other mornings. With movements fed by raw routine he flicked free the encumbering woollen coat, the still air freezing to the skin now hidden only under a linen shirt, he stooped and drew free the iron sword. It's ringing sound not passing into the dead morning. Tension was evident in every line of his body, for this morning smelt not of dew, but of the metallic tang of spilt blood.

Moving slowly forward, he wasn't sure if the lack of speed was because of fear or dread, or even cautiousness, perhaps it was all three that kept his movements reticent. Kneeling, he touched the soft wool of the slaughtered sheep, feeling the sticks of bracken that it had fought through before succumbing to the wounds that showed bright red even in the weird light of the morning. Around him white and red spots of other sheep, mouths open in silent bleats of terror. How had he not heard, the fury needed to murder so many of his charges, the sounds of their pointless efforts to flee? Perhaps it was the same thing that had him oblivious to the dark shadows that moved around him. It was the smell that had him lifting his head, tightening the grip on the sword that had nearly been lost, that would have had him lost if he had dropped it. Weaponless against these foes. They smelt like rotten meat, a bloated joint left out on the table, or the accidental death of a ram, left on the hills to swell in the heat of the summer. As the smell hit him he heard the slight sound of metal on metal, the shift of a body beneath armour. It was reflex, the sword lifted to defend that blow, it pushed it away and when he lifted it, luck had it ripping through the stomach of his attacker. As he looked into that ripped wide maw filled with pointed teeth, hate filled eyes already fading he knew that the stories his father had told him when he was young were not stories. These were those night monsters incarnate.

He didn't know how long he fought them. He did know that it had been luck that had killed the first one. Now it was brutal defence, sword swinging to catch blows before they thudded against flesh or cracked against bone. Luck saved him a few times, his feet slipping on the grass, his weight pulling him down to duck under a blow, to find sure footing to dance away. But still they came.

* * *

He lay breathless in the heather, mouth open in stark breaths as he tried to capture the elusive air of the foothills. His hand was cramped closed around his father's sword, no longer silver grey, but black with monster blood. Letting his head fall to the side he saw the body of the last he had managed to kill. Its eyes were still open, bright menace frozen within those dark orbs. Its mouth was open slackly in death, showing off the serrated teeth that had tried to sever flesh from his face as they had grappled among the bodies of its brethren. He knew it had been luck, that he was still drawing breath, no matter how hard the wounds made it. The fact that he was alive had affirmed something within him. Even though there had only been three, he knew in his soul that this was nothing, that there were more. That someone had to do something. Lifting a seemingly disembodied hand he covered the red stained front of his shirt, wincing at the pressure. The sword had been serrated like the monsters teeth, it had snagged in his shirt and with a growl of glee the monster had fought for it to get closer to skin until it had bitten like a rabid animal into his flesh. He didn't need or want to look at the ruin of his side, he knew it was bad. But there were things to be done before he could fix or even clean it. Habit had him up and checking each of his sheep charges. All were dead, a lifetime of work gone, but even for that sadness he knew that he had more to worry about than the lifeless money left on that field. With them lay the bodies of the Darkspawn, news that he had to tell his father. With the remains of his gear, the blanket wrapped taut around his side, he walked lopsided down the hill, the sword free in his hand, determined that he would be forever aware.

He worked the fire and filled the pot with one hand, the other clasping a folded skin to his side. The house had been empty, but firewood had been chopped, kindling stacked next to the fire. It hadn't taken much work to get it blazing; now the pot hung above flames, bubbles formed working its way towards boiling. He gnawed on a hard heel of bread as he peeled his shirt from his lightly sweating body. Dried elf root steeped in hot water, the smell doing more to calm him, memories of a faceless mother rearing in his mind. It took him some time to get up the guts to clean it properly, to hold open the edges and clean it as well as he could. It made him light headed and the solution turned red quickly. Holding his breath he did as much as he could until he had to rest his head on the table between wipes. He didn't remember the last time he did, but the cloth fell from nerveless fingers as the fire crackled behind him.

* * *

"You gotta be more careful boy."

His eyes were already open on his father when the man broke the silence. Somehow his father had managed to get him onto the bed, a dead weight, even with his heavy limp. His side now clean and strapped though the stain of red had seeped through.

"Father…"

The man flapped his son into silence, the first word he had spoken in a few weeks.

"Believe me; I've seen the work of blades before."

He shook his head vehemently, his head felt heavy but he had to make the distinction.

"No, not man made blades. These were monsters."

Something in his voice, not his words made his father look up at him as he stirred something in a pot.

"What you say boy?"

Licking his lips with a dry tongue he summoned his will and managed to sit up, hands clinging to the edge of the bed.

"Monsters, with dead eyes. They killed the sheep, but they stood like men. Their swords were serrated like their teeth."

The old man knew that his son was no fool; he saw the rightness of living so far out of humanity. He hadn't known his boy to lie; he had whipped that out of him at a young age. And the wound on his side didn't smack of the weapons that he knew about from his time in the rebel army. The monster's name fell into his head shutting out all other noise.

"Darkspawn."

His son gave a single nod and he suddenly found it hard to keep his feet. He fell into a chair, his stiffened leg stuck out awkwardly as he looked into the flames. If what his boy said was true, than this was far from a charging Orleisian with sword and shield, or chevalier with silverite armour and a heavy mace. But for all his belief he knew that he couldn't be totally sure until he had seen for himself, but with a darting look to a window, he knew he didn't want to brave the night if there was truth in the tale.

"Tell you what Rowan, I'll stitch your side as best I can and in the morning I'll trek to the meadow and see the…beasties for myself."

Rowan knew that he wouldn't change his father's mind, but he also understood the look to the window and the subtle change in his father's face. He knew that his father believed him, and this was the first time in a long time that his father had shown fear. His father stood gathering his ruined leg under him with difficulty, gathering a roll of material from the table and approached the bed; Rowan lay back down and tried to keep his breathing fluid. He couldn't help the wince he gave as his father slid the knife around the bandage.

Arin looked down at his son, sleeping though the sweat of pain still shone on his forehead and top lip. His nursing skills had been limited to wounds sustained on a battlefield, not trained for bedside manner but to have a man up and fighting again as soon as possible. Memories had assailed him as he had stitched his son's flesh back together, the remembered wish for another mage to make whole once more. He forced his mind back to the present and wiped Rowan's forehead with the cloth. He looked like his mother, hair the colour of bleached wheat but flashing red with the fire. He was tanned from his time in the sun, lined around his eyes from squinting in the light. His eyes were another thing he had inherited from his mother, grey flint a changing blue. Arin sighed and moved back to his chair beside the fire, hands finding the bottle. He didn't pause to pour it to a mug, he swigged from the neck. Something was ending; he had felt it all night. Like the calm before the storm, that short passage of time when everything seemed so clear and readable. He knew this too would pass, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to start. He became increasingly maudlin the lower the level of alcohol got in the bottle. The comfortable haze of drunkenness passed into a type of depression and he knew he had lost the moment where he could speak to Rowan. No, to say his goodbyes. As the first rays of dawn approached the glass Arin stood, his only weapon the empty stone bottle, he looked at his son. The key for the chest under his bed on that table, more eloquence in that gesture, one day Rowan would understand. As he left the house, it was strange but he began to feel lighter and his hitching gait didn't seem to be a burden anymore. Arin wasn't sure if he had stopped caring, or stopped striving for life. But he was sure that before the end of the day, he would be holding his wife again.

* * *

Rowan looked down at the key; there was no surprise on his face. Just stark truth. His father had gone. But in an odd fashion he had given Rowan his blessing. The key represented everything that Arin had in the world, everything he had left. When Rowan sat on the ground before the open chest, some riddles of his father's past would make sense. The drills in the meadow, the dislike of the villagers, the hate that remained in place of his dead wife. And the armour that still shone as if Arin had cleaned it each night, oiled each leather plate with habitual care, shined each bronze buckle, the blood stained and ripped banner painstakingly folded beneath it. Rowan wasn't sure what his purpose was, but each time he looked at the armour he saw the Darkspawn, he saw the blackness that they possessed and he knew that he had to tell someone; he had to stand against it. He stood abruptly, fighting against instant blackness that nearly covered his eyes. A hand instantly covered his side, beneath the stitches he could feel the heat rising. No fever yet, but one steadily gaining fuel to strip him of use. There was no time then, to make a decision. It had been made for him. Hell, it had probably been made by his father as he had placed that key on the table. As he had cleaned his sword, as he had looked at his son for the last time. Resolutely banning any trace of weakness Rowan pulled on the old linen padding, attached his father's armour, clenching his fist as it was sheathed inside the leather and scale gauntlet. East. He had to go east. Towards both his father's liege lord and to the King.

The scout uniform was light, enabling him a wide range of movement. Swift movement. Even with his father's sword and the few slim knives on his back and hips he could still wear a pack that contained food easily. There had been no bow in his father's arsenal, no crossbow though he had learnt to use those first in the gullies around the house, filling the stews and roasts with fowl and rabbit. But he was proficient with the sword, enough to take on those few Darkspawn, thanks to his father's martial childhood, Rowan too had spent time in a marked out arena, welts rising because he was not fast enough. As he moved, he began to realise things about his father, things that had mostly made him angry and resentful of his father, had placed him more able in his new life than would have worked in his time simply as a shepherd. Then he realised that his father was gone. Dead. It made him stop moving, made him simply stand still. He held his breath as sorrow soared. Until he saw that this new beginning had signalled an ending to something else. For whatever he didn't remember about his mother, about the woman that Arin had never stopped grieving for, now he stood with her. Whether under the gaze of the Maker, or under the auspices of the Creators that his father cursed when speaking of his dead wife. He knew that they had been the ones she had spoken too, had been evident in the snatches of her voice he remembered. His feet found their momentum once more, leaving the whispered prayers to his father's Maker and his mother's Creators in the clearing behind him.

* * *

Rowan gnawed on his thumb nail as he watched the passage of those below him. He sat in the shadow of a crag of rocks, invisible even if they happened to look upwards. He knew there was no reason for him to hide, but echoes of unease from his visits to the village had made him excruciatingly aware of others. And right now those that travelled in the gully below were possibly even more than that to him. They were potential enemies. Their passage did not seem hurried; he could even hear the snatch of laughter and light banter when the wind shifted towards him. And from that he knew that they did not know of the appearance of the monsters that he had seen a few nights before. Oxen lowed as they pulled heavy caravans, taking a different route than himself. They had turned south, to the western shore of the huge lake Calenhad, perhaps to stay out of sight of the massive mage tower that dominated even that huge land mark. For Rowan magic and mages held no fright for him, instead it was the everyday man that made him retreat into himself, he would continue his journey to the east, whether in sight of the mage tower or not. The twinge in his side reminded him once more of his wound, the radiating heat from that injury seemed to make his limbs heavy, pure will stirring him further on. But he knew soon he would have to seek aide from someone else, someone more suited to healing that the meagre attempts and cleaning he had endeavoured. He tried to swallow, but the stirrings of fever had stripped his mouth of moisture and a kernel of fear began to grow in his gut.

* * *

The night seemed barely to shift into day, so heavy were the clouds that coated the sky. Rowan was reticent to move from the spot he had claimed the night before, kept relatively dry by virtue of his own body heat, but he knew he had to be closer to the castle where the lord lived, that even now with the loss of his father; his line was still beholden too. But his movement was slow, care taken with each step, keeping to the tree line, serious thought given to each cross over bare ground. Until he saw it. The reason for his unease, the slide of a foot print, but unlike anything he had seen before. A hitching gait, but one made with purpose. He followed the tracks, until he was finally able to discern the reason for such movement. This one was hunting. Much like he was doing in following these tracks, this spawn was tracking another, one he had no sensed or seen sign of. And instead of fear or fright, a grin spread across his lips and his fingers clenched in the happy anticipation of a kill. Several times he stopped, trying to coax the pain in his side to leave, just enough for him to catch up. Breathing slowly he searched both for the hunted and whom they hunted. But there was little sign, barely a shift in grass or the turn of a leaf. It was as if the spawn was hunting a ghost. But it would work in his favour; never would they hear him coming, so intent on their own prey. The grunt and squeal came abruptly from beyond a copse of trees, but Rowan did not charge, he slowly drew a knife and entered the trees at a slow pace. He would keep up his invisibility for as long as possible, it would probably be his only weapon, this element of surprise.

They had circled a man, four of them. They were slightly different to the ones that he had fought. These stood taller, the height of a man, but still with that wide split mouth and their dark skin. For all their horrible appearance, it was the man who interested rowan more. He stood tall before these monsters, a beard covering his chin and jaw, a long sword held easily in his hands. A feint from one at the back had him reeling into an attack on another, severing an arm before the sword appeared inside it's chest. It squealed and died clawing at the terrible wound. Rowan could see the skill this man had, an old experience in each movement and indeed each look he gave to the spawn. He could probably take all of them if he had the time. But Rowan wanted to even the numbers a little, but with no ranged weapons he would have to leave his cover. He did so slowly, still not drawing attention to himself, keeping a spawn between him and the others, serving to also hide his appearance from the old soldier. At a ferocious grapple between the soldier and a tall spawn Rowan made his move, taking advantage of the slight dip into the ground. The knife seemed eager to do its job, severing sinew with alacrity. With the ping of a taut tendon the spawn fell limbless if not quite dead to the ground, black blood pissing out to the ground. The sword drawn smoothly from his back to take the attack of the other not falling under the man's sword. Rowan twisted, swearing with a gasp as his yanked his torso to the side, his knife undoing the monster's side. Bulging and horrible smelling guts erupted to the ground, the spawn squealing in outrage but no pain. It ended with a sword through its mouth and through its skull. Rowan looked up at the man, dark eyes staring at him with an unreadable expression. Both men studied each other, one older and grizzled, an earring shining in his ear, bladed weapons on his back and hips, wearing a conglomeration of armour, a deep skirted grey tunic, the other in a uniform from a bygone age, pale hair loose, a hand hovering over a wound.

"I suppose I should thank you for taking their attention off me, but you could have got yourself killed."

Perhaps the man had expected an angry response, he did not get one.

"That is a risk undertaken each time one fights a Darkspawn."

An eyebrow arched at Rowan's choice of words.

"An old hand in one so young?"

Rowan couldn't help but smile, gesturing to his hidden wound. What he wouldn't give for a drink of water.

"Not an old hand by any means. But one who could not allow their appearance to go unchallenged, as it were."

A sudden grin lifted that man's face.

"Interesting. Come, we are not far from my night's camp. We can continue this there, and I think you carry a wound that would benefit from another pair of hands."

* * *

Rowan sat tensed before the small fire, the man, Duncan he had introduced himself as, had been impressed at the wound, but there had been a look of worry that he had not yet explained.

"You do not seem feverish?"

He seemed to ask himself, or the fire he faced. But Rowan answered, goose bumps rippling around his bare torso.

"I feel the start of fever, but so far it has been restricted to the feel of pulled muscles and aches rather than a full blown illness."

Even as he explained this and the coolness of the day he could feel the shine of sweat. Duncan was silent, musing like his father used too. Fingers tracing the line of his beard and back. The length of the silence did not make Rowan feel any better.

"My name is Rowan. I was a shepherd; a few days ago three of those monsters killed my flock. While I managed to kill them, one caught me with his weapon. I thought to go east, to my father's lord, or perhaps the king and warn them."

"You killed them alone?"

"Yes. It was not a pretty fight, but I did."

Duncan seemed impressed, Rowan didn't think that he would be the kind of man impressed easily. The silence began to drag on again, but it was Duncan, who broke it,

"I'm afraid I wasn't totally honest with you Rowan. I am a Grey warden, the leader of the Wardens in Ferelden and we have been aware of the Darkspawn and their appearance for some time. In fact I am heading towards the Tower of Magi, then to Ostagar at the edge of the Wilds, for the King gathers his army against a horde sighted in that area."

Grey Wardens, his father had spoken of them only a few times. That the King had allowed them back into the country at the end of the occupation, that they were all that stood between the Darkspawn and the people they killed.

"Why are you travelling this way then? Shouldn't you be heading south?"

A smile lifted the side of Duncan's lip.

"I heard tell of a possible recruit in the Coastlands, volunteers are few and far between for the Warden. I left the contingent of Wardens with Cailan near the Wilds and have been travelling alone. But there is nothing left at Highever, so I move for the Circle, perhaps a recruit can be found there."

Reaching to toss a stray piece of kindling into the fire he spoke once more, more to the fire than to Rowan.

"It seems that the Maker might have guided me to another."

There was no doubt to whom the Warden could be referring. Air turned to ash in Rowan's lungs and he was driven to stutter,

"Me?"

Duncan turned to him, gesturing to his side,

"You were moved enough not to run and flee at the sight of spawn but to attack them, and instead of taking your hide somewhere opposite to the spawn, you are moved to press forward and convey news of their appearance to a place you have never been to a man you have not seen but to whom your father owes allegiance. You tracked spawn to an ambush and instead of staying hidden you attack with no thought to the possibility, some would say probability of you dying."

Here Duncan slightly hesitated,

"That wound on your side it not just an infected sword cut. That was made by a Tainted Darkspawn weapon. It will not heal on its own. In fact it will not heal. Instead the fever that you can feel rising even now will erupt into blight sickness…"

Rowan wasn't sure where it was heading, but the trailing off led nowhere good.

"Is there anything that can be done?"

"I can offer a possibility, but becoming a Warden or just a recruit isn't a cure, not really. I offer the possibility of life, but one dedicated to the death of the Darkspawn and ending the blight."

There was such finality in Duncan's words. Of responsibility, but also in that last word utter resolution. That the few Darkspawn, even those that he had said were massing near the Wilds were not random. There was something more, enough to have him searching for recruits, for aide even for the Wardens. There was no decision to be made, if he did not accept a place as a Warden Recruit he would die, or worse. At least as a Warden or with the possibility of becoming a Warden he would have purpose. He lifted his head to look Duncan in the eye,

"Would you accept me?"


End file.
